OVER a cup of tea with colleagues recently, the conversation wandered quite naturally in these uncertain times towards the regional tensions between Pakistan and India, and the unspoken fear of what might unfold should matters escalate.

One of my colleagues, half-seriously, asked what preparations, like buying stuff in bulk, we ought to make to safeguard our families and colleagues. It was a casual exchange, yet it sparked in my mind a quiet, uneasy note about who we have become as a society when tested by adversity.

Time and again, we have seen how a crisis exposes the cracks in our social fabric and far too often, what it reveals is disheartening. Just imagine the cab driver at a deserted stop late at night, who knows that the client at such an hour likely has no choice, and quotes an exorbitant fare without hesitation.

During the days of the Covid pandemic everyday medicines, like paracetamol, and ordinary supplies, like handwash and sanitisers, were hoarded and sold at five or six times their normal price.

Year after year, we see Ramazan a time that calls for generosity and self-restraint becoming a money-minting opportunity for vendors and retailers.

What troubles me the most is not the economic opportunism, but the moral vacuum it reflects. Are we, as a society, losing our capacity for empathy? Somewhere along the way, the value of collective wellbeing seems to have been eclipsed by the urge for personal gain however fleeting, however exploitative.

As I returned to my desk that day, I could not help but ask myself: What are we teaching the next generation? Not through textbooks or sermons, but through our actions? What do our children learn when they see society repeatedly accord value to profit over principle? I do not claim to have answers, but I believe we need an honest introspection.Perhaps it begins at home with parents who teach not just through instruction, but example. Perhaps it continues in schools, in religious institutions, and in public discourse.

But, above all, it must begin with the recognition that our moral compass has tilted and if we do not correct it now, we risk raising a generation that sees empathy not as a virtue, but as a liability.

AsifFarooqui Islamabad